SMH.
Just when you think the rules can’t get any stupider…
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UPDATE: Can I get a harumph?
I can’t imagine why Guy would make up a story like that, so I guess we’ll wait and see how this shakes out.
Filed under The NCAA
If you’re a sportswriter for the AJ-C, surely it’s getting to pontificate on what a Georgia football coach ought to do when his players get arrested.
Filed under Georgia Football, Media Punditry/Foibles
Why, the rich conferences will get all the best ones, unlike now… uh, wait.
Filed under Recruiting, The NCAA
Those that can’t, teach about what the others did.
Filed under Academics? Academics.
Behold, the latest in Tech marketing:
04 Day – 4/04/2019
Join the 404 Takeover! Show your support for Coach Geoff Collins and Georgia Tech football by participating in 404 Day.
Click Here for More Information
Fans who make a $404 donation to Georgia Tech football on 404 Day (Thursday, April 4), beginning at 8 a.m., will receive:
an exclusive adidas Georgia Tech “404” hat (as worn by Coach Collins during practice this week!)
AND
an exclusive adidas Georgia Tech backpack
Supplies are very limited — ACT EARLY to receive your exclusive 404 hat and backpack before they’re all gone!
The first $100,000 raised will be matched by the generosity of an anonymous donor.
All funds raised on 404 Day will be allocated for technology upgrades for the football program.
What, no Waffle House? Maybe they’re saving that for the next promo. Although I’ve got to admit a football promotion for the purpose of a technology upgrade is so Georgia Tech.
(h/t DCWeez)
Filed under Georgia Tech Football
Pac-12’s gonna Pac-12, y’all.
We know Scott likes bold. He went bold trying to form the Pac-16. He went bold with the $3 billion Tier 1 deal with ESPN and Fox. He went bold with 100 percent ownership in the Pac-12 Networks.
Bold works when it’s the right bold, not when it’s the wrong bold.
The conference made a wrong turn with its business model for the networks: 100 percent ownership, 850 live events and six regional networks created supply that exceeded demand — and not nearly enough viewership or revenue.
Which is why the conference is seeking a cash infusion in the first place.
A Hotline source told me recently that athletic department officials are concerned campus executives will view the cash provided by an equity partner — perhaps as much as $60 million per school — as a chance to eliminate debt.
That those responsible for balancing the books will hijack the process, leaving the athletic departments with nothing left for long-haul resource investment.
They would be right back where they are now, except with an outside entity sharing in their media revenue.
(Over the course of decades, the money lost by splitting the pie 13 ways instead of 12 would quickly erase the initial windfall.)
“It can’t be about helping our budgets,’’ the source said. “It has to be about helping us compete.”
If debt elimination is the end-game … if that’s the other end of this wormhole … the conference will be much worse off than it is now.
But the schools’ books will be sounder. And isn’t it their money and their choice on how to spend it?
I’m not trying to argue who’s right and who’s wrong here. It’s clear, though, that this is a bunch that’s never been on the same page with the guy they brought in to be bold. That’s how you get to a point like this. Given their track record, what are the odds that whatever choice they eventually make works?
Filed under It's Just Bidness, Pac-12 Football
This is how he did it.
“I remember Coach Richt – he was super strict,” He was no bs at all,” Murray said. “You are going to keep screwing around, you are gone. I remember Isaiah Crowell was the SEC freshman of the year and they next year he gets arrested and he gets kicked off the team. Coach Richt was like ‘hey, I gave you two opportunities. And you obviously were not mature enough at that time to handle it. I don’t care if you were freshman of the year. You are out of here.”
Obviously, that lesson sunk in deeply. Just ask Nick Marshall and Trey Matthews.
Filed under Crime and Punishment, Georgia Football
He’s one of the more sensible bloggers out there, so I’m not trying to mock David Wunderlich here, but, damned if this doesn’t read like something I might have tried to post a decade ago about an upcoming Georgia season.
I keep saying it, but it’s still weird to see the shoe on the other foot like that. Not that I’m complaining…
Filed under Gators, Gators...
From Mandel’s Mailbag ($$), about the next round of conference realignment:
If there’s another big round of shuffling, it will likely come somewhere in the 2023-26 range. Several major TV contracts will come up for bid in short succession, starting with the Big Ten (2023), followed by the Pac-12 (2024), Big 12 (2025) and, perhaps most significantly, the College Football Playoff (2025). Don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Big Ten opted for shorter-than-usual six-year deals with ESPN and FOX in its last round of negotiations. Or that the Pac-12 recently turned down a tempting offer from ESPN to take over distribution for the long-struggling Pac-12 Networks that would have locked in its Tier 1 rights “well into the 2030s.”
Most people in the business believe there could be some sort of major shakeup around the time of that aforementioned window. But nobody has any idea what that might be, in large part because the TV rights climate is changing so rapidly.
Got that? When realignment comes — again — it won’t be a matter of what’s best for the sport. It’ll be a matter of what’s best for the conferences’ bank accounts.
College football doesn’t need a commissioner. Just outsource the job to the head of ESPN and eliminate the middleman.
Filed under College Football, It's Just Bidness
No shit, Mark. Seems like there’s a way to change that.
Emmert added that the association does not believe the courts should decide what qualifies as a benefit tethered to education.
“We just find that an unworkable proposal that anytime you want to have a discussion over whether or not something is or isn’t tethered [to] education, we have to go back to a judge and have that debate and discussion. That just seems inherently inappropriate and not an appropriate role for the judiciary, but one that does fit the role of the NCAA,” Emmert said.
Eh, forget I mentioned it.
Filed under See You In Court, The NCAA
Get The Picture 